Alice rang me up the next morning. I had slept late, and was still in bed, and I went out sleepily onto the landing. Alice sounded cheerful. I could not concentrate upon what she was saying, but I agreed to have lunch with her. Then I went back to bed.
By the time I arrived at the restaurant I had remembered that my last meeting with her had not been successful. Marius and I had been rude, and she had left us angrily. I now wished to make up for this, and for more besides; because it struck me suddenly that in all my friendship with Alice there had been something degrading for both of us. I had liked being with her because as a character she fascinated me, and by watching her I thought I was learning about people as a whole. I liked listening to her oddities and contradictions — expressions of a character that seemed to exist so much on the surface, flashing out in different directions like the facets of a diamond, indicating a centre hidden and obscure. She seemed to behave with the unswerving superficiality of an older generation; and yet, being really of my generation, to be possessed by none of the older people’s righteousness and cant. Thus I could both approach her and at the same time try to find out what this life on the surface meant — why it was necessary for so many energetic people to spend their energy like this — whether they recognized their oddities and contradictions and practised them purposely, or whether it was merely some instinct within them which made them function as they did. But in approaching her like this, as an object of experiment almost — to be observed and analysed as an excellent example of what I wanted to understand — I was treating her as a machine and not as a person, and it was this that was degrading. It was degrading for me because to treat people as machines is to become a machine oneself, and it was degrading for her because she tried, in her own way, to like me, and yet found me, I suppose, because my way was different from hers, unexpectedly dull and inhuman. It was this that I wanted to change.
Alice had arrived at the restaurant before me. She was sitting at the best table by the window and was ordering wine. When she saw me she waved, and as I sat down she put her hand on top of mine. “Darling,” she said, “how wonderful to see you.” Her eyes were the colour of a smart bright swimming-pool. “This is my lunch,” she said. “I am sure it is going to be a wonderful lunch.”
“It is very kind of you,” I said.
“How nice you look,” she said. Her hand as it lay on top of mine was pointed and thin with long smooth nails, and two silver bracelets jutted up from her wrist like hoops. I wondered why when she stood up they did not fall off. Her arm against the table-cloth was white like wax.
“You look very nice too,” I said.
“Darling,” she said, “you don’t mean it, but still.”
“I do mean it, you know, but I can’t say it,” I said.
“Why can’t you say it?”
“Because it doesn’t sound right when I say it.”
“Darling, if you meant it it would.”
“It somehow doesn’t,” I said.
A waiter approached. He produced two menus the size of magazines. “I have ordered lunch,” Alice said. He flicked at the table languidly with a cloth. “And claret,” Alice said. “Can we please have it soon?” The waiter bowed to her and departed. “I hope you like claret,” Alice said to me.
“I do,” I said.
“I’m sure you really despise it, darling, but you should get to know about claret, you know.”
“Yes,” I said.
She took the skin on the back of my hand between her finger nails and gave it a pinch. It hurt considerably. I wanted to giggle, as I thought how funny it would be if I put my other hand on top of hers and we played the game of pulling the bottom hand out from underneath and slapping it back on the top of the pile. But I did not think that this suggestion would amuse her. I had to say something quickly, however, as the pain was becoming unbearable, so I said “Why is it, do you think, that we find it so difficult to talk to each other?”
“Darling I don’t know,” she said, stopping pinching.
“I mean, what do you like talking about with other people?”
“With whom?”
“With your friends, your real friends, as you once said.”
“Darling, we just talk.”
“You’re not going to get angry if I go on?”
“No,” she said, pleasantly, but taking her hand away from mine.
“Because, you see, you seem to talk about things that I could never say.”
“You’re so young, darling,” she said, and I was afraid that she was going to withdraw from me again.
“I don’t think it’s being young,” I said. “What is it that you want from people when you talk?”
“To be amusing, charming, gay, surely.”
“I don’t think I do, you see.”
“Why, what on earth do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“To be serious?” she sighed tremendously. “Darling, don’t you want ever to stop being serious?”
“I can’t ever begin,” I said.
“Now I think you are trying to be clever,” she said.
The waiter brought soup. Then the claret arrived and there was the ceremony of opening the bottle and tasting it. I had a momentary fear that Alice was going to send it back, but she didn’t. Her hesitation was only a successful ruse to impress the waiter. We sipped it appreciatively.
“I was wondering,” I said, “why is it that you and I mean different things by being serious and gay.”
“It really is being young, you know. I really can’t explain it.” For the first time since I had known her she appeared to be entirely serious.
“Do explain it,” I said.
“Well, you see, I think life just becomes a business when you are older.”
“But you surely still feel things? Unbusinesslike things, I mean?”
“Darling, what you feel hasn’t got much to do with life.”
“It has everything to do with it, surely. . ”
“Not life, not living it,” she said. We drank our soup while I thought this over.
“Then you are like me,” I said; —“what you feel you can’t express.”
“Good heavens, I’m not like you,” she said.
“But you see you are, because what you feel is different from what comes out, which is business.”
“Not very nice businesses come out of you darling,” she said.
“No, but that is the difficulty you see, to live what you feel.”
“You can’t,” she said. “Not possibly.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.” She obstinately finished her soup.
“What can you live then?” I said.
“You can have fun, darling,” she said. “Have you ever thought of that?”
“I can’t have fun when I don’t feel like it. Why not make a business of what you feel?”
“It really isn’t so easy,” she said. She reached into her bag for a cigarette. “Besides, you don’t know anything about businesses, darling.”
“I think I am beginning to,” I said.
“Why?” she said.
“Because we have been talking for ten minutes without you getting angry. Isn’t that good business?”
“It’s because you have been so terribly gay, darling,” she said, with an enormous smile.
“So serious,” I said.
“But you see, your face is nice, which makes all the difference.”